1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for locating an object in space through its latitude and its longitude with respect to a reference.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a known means of locating an object, carrying a light source, by means of a camera. The resolution of a locating system of this type is related to that of the camera, namely to the number of pixels that this camera can record. Furthermore, this definition can be adversely affected by the fact that several pixels of the camera are excited simultaneously, in which case, it is necessary to seek the barycenter of several pixels. If it is desired to locate an object in a field with a 10-meter span, it would appear that it is impossible, with this method, to obtain a resolution of higher than one centimeter, and this is inadequate for certain applications.
There are also known methods for locating objects, such as joints between parts to be welded, with a view to their robotized welding. These methods consist in scanning the parts with a laser beam and in focusing the light spot created by impact on a position sensor of the PIN diode type. The locating signals are obtained from the distribution of loads among several electrodes. In addition to the fact that this system is limited to the location of a plane section of the object, it also has insufficient definition for a field such as the one mentioned above.
The present invention seeks to remove these drawbacks.